Economic Impact

At The Arts Partnership, we understand that the arts are integral for a vital and stable economy on a local, regional and national scale — and the Arts and Economic Prosperity Five study provides the proof.

In 2017, we coordinated the Metro’s participation in the comprehensive nationwide study by Americans for the Arts. The study provided information about the economic impact of local spending on jobs, household income and government revenue using localized research focused on arts organizations and incorporating the event-related spending by their audiences.

Collectively, arts nonprofits generated $41.6 million in the Metro in 2015. That’s an impressive number, and that only looked at a portion of the nonprofit arts and culture organizations in the Metro. Imagine what that number would be if we had also been able to include Jade Presents concerts, the Gate City Bank Broadway Theatre series at the Fargo Dome, for profit galleries, individual artists’ sales and more? This study gave measurable proof that for the Metro, the arts do, indeed, mean business.

The national report analyzed data from 341 study regions representing all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In Fargo-Moorhead, we collected data from 46 eligible nonprofit arts and cultural organizations representing a wide range of organization size and arts or culture genres.

Event-Related Spending by Arts and Culture Event Attendees

As part of the study, we collected 1,009 audience surveys at art events throughout the Metro to capture the economic ripple effect of local spending by art audiences. When patrons attend an arts event, they may shop at nearby stores, eat dinner at a restaurant and return home to pay the babysitter. Those from out of town often spend the night in a hotel. The effect of such expenditures in our community is impressive: event-related spending by arts and culture event attendees totaled $24.1 million EXCLUDING the cost of event admissions.